Trapped
by dancergirl2156
Summary: Karina Lessing has always been misunderstood and, quite frankly, depressed. She sees no reason to continue on with her unhappy life to the point that the only thing keeping her going is the hope that someday, somehow, she'll find a way out. She doesn't think she's getting rescued any time soon, but when a mysterious man offers you the opportunity of a lifetime, you don't say no.
1. Prologue

**Trigger Warning: The prologue and first chapter especially will deal with depression, self-harm, and suicide.**

* * *

The Doctor had travelled with many companions in years past. He needed someone to accompany him, after all—being the last of one's species tends to get just a tad bit lonely. Of course, all of those companions and friends and others he'd travelled with were adults, old enough to be on their own for the most part. Even little Amelia Pond hadn't travelled with him until she was much older than the day she met him; of course, that was more his mistake than anything else.

The Doctor honestly had never truly thought of taking someone along who still hadn't really experienced Earth yet; Amelia had happened so quickly he never thought about the complications that could arise. While he himself acted like a five year old often, he had seen all there was to see. And then, there was the obvious danger that seemed to follow him wherever he went. Of course, all of this was before he met Karina Lessing.

She was fourteen years old and she felt utterly trapped. And she was a huge surprise to the Doctor. He had unconsciously formed a sort of stereotype of teenagers, especially the human ones who hadn't even reached university yet: that they all only cared about themselves and that, honestly, they couldn't handle the huge secrets and responsibilities travelling with him entailed. Karina changed all of that.

The Doctor met Karina when she was walking home from school. She had looked completely depressed. The last time he had seen such an empty, sad look in someone's eyes was probably when he looked into the mirror fresh out of the Time War. That kind of look ages someone. Not realising how young she was, the Doctor crossed the street and asked her if she was alright.

Karina didn't even look him in the eyes, she simply held her head up a little higher and walked the tiniest bit faster. The Doctor sped up his pace to match hers, thinking there could be something he could do to help. They walked around five more metres before Karina suddenly stopped short. The Doctor walked right by her, then quickly backtracked, his cheeks flushing.

"Are you alright?" he inquired once again.

"I _was_ until a creep in a lame bowtie decided to start _stalking_ me," she said, irritated.

"Hey! Bowties are cool," the Doctor said, subconsciously adjusting his bowtie before he realised what she had said after insulting his accessory. "I am not stalking you!" he said, offended at the thought. "You looked sad and I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"You saw a teenager walking home from school, registered that she seemed sad, and then decided, 'Hey, I'll just turn around and follow her to make sure she's alright!' because that seems a little suspicious," Karina told him before spinning on her heel and continuing to walk down the street.

The doctor looked down, realising that what he had been doing _could have_ made him look the _slightest_ bit suspicious. Wait…did she say…? "Wait!" he called, rushing to catch up to you. "You're still in school?" he asked in disbelief.

"Um, yes," she replied, speeding up the tiniest bit more. This guy was really starting to creep her out, but she got the impression that he was more crazy than a pedophile.

"You're at least in uni?" he questioned again.

"Nope," she replied, starting to get annoyed.

A wave of remorse washed over the Doctor. Poor girl, she had obviously been though a lot if she had that kind of utter hopelessness in her eyes… And he had made things even worse, following her like he had. "I'm so sorry! I'd better pop off, then! Wouldn't want your mum getting worried!" the Doctor said quickly. He ran off down the street and seemed to enter a strange blue box.

Karina stopped and stared in the direction he had run and muttered sarcastically, "Yeah, wouldn't want to worry mum." A few seconds later, she shook herself out of the silly trance she was in and kept walking right on home.

When she entered the empty house, she headed for the kitchen, instead of going straight up to her room like she normally did. A cuppa could do her good right around then, with the day she'd had.

First, she'd been drilled by two separate teachers on how she needed to be more focused on her studies, as if they should matter to her. At lunch, her best (and only) friend Mary had seen the scars on her wrists when she reached up to stretch and her sleeve fell down. She had called her a freak and dumped her as a friend. She didn't eat any of her lunch, not like she usually ate much.

And then the crazy man walking home. He had gone into some blue box. What was it? Who has a _box_? He couldn't have been _too_ old, thirty-five at the most, she supposed. Of course, looks can be deceiving. And what was with all of those questions? Karina had _thought_ she was pretty good at hiding her emotions, but apparently the man had been able to tell something was wrong even from across the street.

She shook her head and put the kettle on to boil. Her mother wouldn't be home until at least seven, and her stepfather hardly ever was home any time before nine. Her mother, ironically, considering Karina's current state, was a psychologist. Her stepfather supposedly had some top-secret position somewhere in the government. Karina was suspicious, while he _did_ seem to make lots of money.

Once the tea was made, Karina headed up to her room, the only place in the whole universe that felt safe to her. You couldn't really blame her, considering the way her life was going. Her father had died before her birth, and sometimes she felt guilty, but she honestly had never felt sad about it. Her mother had married Peter when she was only seven, so he was as much of a father figure she had ever known.

Karina had never truly been happy with life, even when she was young. She had dealt with severe insomnia for as long as she could remember. No one understood her, and while most teenagers felt that way, Karina knew it was the truth. She could see all of the darkness in the world, and she knew for a fact that it outweighed the light.

She often wondered what the point of living at all was, if we were all going to die in the end anyways. She knew that if something had been different, if her father hadn't died, if her mother had been home more often, if she hadn't married Peter, _anything_, her views on life could've been totally different. But her life was the way it was, and there was nothing that could change it. She planned on going to uni in London, but she had the feeling that escaping the town wouldn't necessarily mean escaping the sad lifestyle she had adopted.

She knew she was depressed. That much was obvious. She had overheard her mum talking to Peter about other patients she had, and she knew the symptoms. No one noticed, however, so why should she tell? Nothing would change. Karina had honestly come very, very close to taking her own life, but she talked herself out of it by dreaming of the future. 4

She didn't know when or how, but Karina Lessing was NOT living her life trapped in a bubble of depression. She was getting out.


	2. Chapter 1: The Blue Box

**One Year and Six Months Later**

Life dragged on for Karina, even with no friends and no hope for the future. In all honesty, the summer she turned sixteen, she came closer to killing herself than she had ever come before. She had pulled the stash of pills out from the jewelry box in her closet, written a note, and poured as many as she possibly could into her hand. She stared at herself in the bathroom mirror, ready to down the pills and end it all.

There was literally no one to miss, not for Karina. She had heard the stories of people whose friends hadn't known what to do with themselves after they were gone, whose parents and siblings had to leave town it was so painful. But Karina had no friends, and her parents hadn't even noticed that she had been severely depressed for over two years.

Just as she was about to do it and put an end to her living hell, something very strange happened. There was a noise, just outside her window… or was it the bathroom door? It was a type of wheezing, and it was the strangest noise she'd ever heard. "Oh, what the hell," Karina muttered. "I'm gonna die anyways."

She pushed open the door and stepped into her room. There was a giant box sitting on the middle of her carpet. A giant blue box. On her carpet. In her room. And it hadn't been there twenty minutes ago. What was going on?

Just because her day couldn't get any weirder, a man poked his head out of the box. "What's this I hear about dying?" he asked.

Karina knew that face from somewhere… And the box, actually… She gasped in recognition, putting together the pieces from that day over a year ago. And she promptly fell to the floor in a dead faint.

_"No, no no!" Karina vaguely heard someone shout. She couldn't focus, and she was almost in a dreamlike state. _Was_ it a dream? "Don't _do_ that!" the same voiced complained. It was a man, she could tell, possibly the same man with the blue box… wait… had that really happened? _

_Karina was lying on a cold, hard table. She thought it was some type of metal, but she wasn't sure. She tried to open her eyes, but everything stayed black. Was this what death felt like? She didn't _remember _taking the pills, some sort of distraction had come up…_

_Oh, yes. The man with the blue box. She had just thought of it a second ago, her memory was failing. How had he gotten into her home, her bedroom? Was he going to kill her, do the job she was about to do herself?_

_No, he would've done it by now. She was somewhere lying on a table, totally exposed. She could only guess that he was nearby, of course. He had to be. Her parents would've left her to die, and he was the only one who had been anywhere near her that day._

_"There, that's better! All fixed up! Wake up!" the same voice, the man with the blue box, said. Karina tried to flutter her eyes open again, but her eyelids seemed glued shut. "Oh come on, I know you can do it!" he said, much more pleadingly this time._

_"I can get you out of here! Take you anywhere you want to go, how does that sound? All of time and space all wrapped up in this beauty!" That really got Karina's attention. What did he mean? Was he talking about the box? Was it possible… could the _box _move? No, that was silly. A child's daydream. This man was obviously mad. But if he could take her away from here, she needed to take that opportunity. She wasn't risking him leaving._

_Gathering up as much strength as she possibly could, Karina pushed her eyes open and gasped._

A whole spectrum of colours flooded her eyes. Where was she? Certainly not in her house. The table she had been on was metal, as she'd guessed. She seemed to be in some type of medical area. The man in the bowtie was standing there, his brow furrowed in worry. When he saw that she was awake, he grinned. "Oh good, you're awake! I was starting to worry."

Karina chuckled internally. If only he knew what she had been about to do. "Where am I?" she demanded, her voice wavering slightly.

"You're in the TARDIS med bay," he said, a more serious look on his face. "You passed out when you saw me. She says you haven't been eating enough and I added to the shock. Low blood sugar."

"TARDIS? And who's _she_?" Karina asked suspiciously.

"They're one and the same!" the man said with glee. "The TARDIS is my ship. Stands for 'Time and Relative Dimension in Space.'"

"Ship? As in _space_?" Karina asked. She was really starting to think that this man was insane and was formulating escape plans in her head.

"Yep!" he said, popping the p. "And time!"

That line of conversation was obviously getting nowhere. "Why do you call it a she?" she said with a giggle. Was this some type of joke? The room that she was in made some type of _noise_.

"Because _she_ is a she!" the man said offendedly.

"Okay, who are you?" Karina demanded. "You're insane!"

"I'm the Doctor," the man said with a grin. "And I can assure you that I am most definitely insane."

"How do I get out of here?" Karina asked, exasperated. "I'm done with this." She pushed herself up off the table, ignoring the horrid headache she seemed to have acquired.

"Follow me," the Doctor said, a little sadly. He led her through lots of twisting corridors and into a large room that had what looked like a control panel with a big, lit up column stretching out from the centre of it. Where _was _she? "Just out those doors," he said.

Eager to get out of there, Karina quickly went up to the door that the Doctor had pointed to. She pushed them open and—

Karina was standing in the middle of her bedroom. She whirled around, thinking that it must be some type of set, for some messed up television programme. Some type of _scarily accurate_ set. But all she saw was that damned blue box. What had he called it? The TARDIS? She ran around it, not believing her eyes. She pushed the door open again with wide eyes.

The Doctor leaned against the control panel in the middle, a sly grin on his face. He had been expecting her. "So what do you think?" he asked.

"Wha..?" Karina couldn't form a coherent sentence. Had he been telling the _truth_?

"I know," the Doctor said, keeping that irritating smile on his face.

"It's…it's…"

"You can say it, you know," the Doctor said.

"It's bigger on the inside!" she finally shouted.

"Yup!" the Doctor shouted, smiling even wider. He loved it when people said that.

"But how?" she gasped.

The Doctor simply grinned at her. "So, you know I never caught your name, where would you like to go? Anywhere in all of time and space, how's that sound? You look like you could use it."

"K-Karina," she stuttered out. "_Anywhere_?" she asked in shock.

"In the whole wide universe," the Doctor confirmed.

"When you said that I looked like I needed it… do you know?" she asked meekly, still not quite sure if she could trust this man, this Doctor.

"Know that you were going to kill yourself before I got there?" he replied, dead serious. "Yes. Karina, I do know your name, of course I do. You see, I met you for the first time yesterday." She started to interrupt. "Time travel, remember? I recognised the absolute depression on your face, and when you told me how young you were, well, I worried. I decided to fast forward just a bit.

"I saw that the day that we met was the beginning of a slightly better time for you, and then I saw that it got worse. Much worse." He chose to omit a few of the more painful details. "And well, I saw that you were getting closer to the bottom of the spiral and I knew that there had to be something I could do. Your death is not a fixed point. It doesn't need to happen, Karina. I know to you it may seem otherwise, but you have potential.

"I'm very glad that I made it in time. Had I been a minute later, there would have been nothing that I could've done. Please, please trust me." Karina sighed. She had to believe them. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he knew all the pain she had gone through in those few years he had simply skipped over. A part of her was very angry about that. She was forced to take the long road, and he had simply watched it all in a single day.

"Why didn't you get me sooner?" she demanded. "All those opportunities you had to take me away, and you took none of them. Why?"

"The timing wasn't right," his voice broke. He smiled weakly. "It had to be the end."

Not completely understanding, Karina decided to nod and pretend she knew what he was talking about.

The Doctor grinned again, but it didn't quite reach his eyes this time. "So, where would you like to go?" he asked again.

Karina stepped up to the controls to join him. "Oh, I don't know, anywhere," she said. "Just get me out of here." She went to go press a button, but the Doctor slapped her hand away just in time.

"Oi! No touching the console!" he reprimanded her.

"Sorry," Karina said, slightly offended. She rubbed her hand.

Seeing the look on her face, the Doctor explained, "It's just that this is a very powerful machine. I don't want anything to happen that could cause danger!"

Karina laughed. "It's fine, Doctor. Take me anywhere!"

He smiled once more, pulling levers and pushing buttons and flying the thing. "Next stop: anywhere! Geronimo!" he shouted.

Karina shook her head with a smile once they had landed. It had been bumpy and just a little scary, but they had landed. The Doctor adjusted his bowtie and headed for the door, but she caught his arm and pulled him back towards the console. "Wait, Doctor! Will it be dangerous?" she asked.

He smiled at her. "Most likely. Let's go! There could be _anything_ outside of those doors!"

"You must have _some _idea where we are!" she gasped. "You _flew _the thing here!"

"Put it on random! Now, quit wasting time!"

The Doctor pushed open the doors.

Karina bounded out, excited to see their destination. She stopped dead in her tracks and whirled around to face the Doctor, who had a sheepish expression on her face. "Anywhere! Anywhere in the entire _universe_, in all of _time_ and you brought us to _London_?" she shouted at him.

They were standing in front of Buckingham Palace, the usual crowd of irritating tourists snapping pictures and laughing and mucking about. "What's the date?" she asked a man who was taking a picture of two children.

He looked at her strangely. "July twelfth," he replied. He was an American.

"What year?" she inquired.

"Are you okay, Miss?" he asked her. "It's 2013."

Karina rolled her eyes. "Thank you," she told the American. She walked back to the Doctor. "It seems to be the same day that we left," she informed him dryly.

"Don't look at me!" he said. "It was all her!" He pointed at the TARDIS accusingly.

"What are we doing here?" Karina said with a sigh. She didn't want to be here. Too many bad memories.

"Not sure, to be honest. We could be here for a reason. Or we could not. Would you like to go someplace else?" he asked.

"Yes. Preferably somewhere _not _reachable by car." Karina marched past him, leading the way back into the TARDIS.

"I'll fly it myself this time," the Doctor said, trying not to show that it bugged him that the TARDIS had chosen then and there to take them to. She hardly ever randomly chose a place and time, and this definitely was not one of them. This was way too much of a coincidence. "Requests?"

"Are you an alien?" Karina blurted out. The thought had occurred to her, but now she really did want to know.

"Yep," the Doctor said, brushing it off as nothing.

"Where are _you_ from?" she asked.

"A wonderful place that we can't go to," he replied, his face taking a darker expression.

Not noticing, she continued the conversation. "Why not? What's it called? Why do you look human?"

"We just can't. Humans look like my species, not the other way around. Please, Karina, just leave it. Where would you like to go?" Karina took the hint.

"I want to meet aliens! Let's go to another planet!" she requested.

"For your first trip?" the Doctor asked skeptically. "Oh!" he exclaimed. It seemed he had gotten an idea of the perfect destination. He went back to the console and began to fly.


	3. Chapter 2: Let's Meet Some Aliens

**Note: I'm so very sorry for the delay and the shitty, short chapter that follows! I had extreme writers' block on this one, and the world decided this should be the busiest week ever for me. And my Tumblr is vashta-the-nerada if any of you fancy a chat or whatever. :)**

* * *

Karina gasped for air and opened her eyes, expecting to be surrounded by nothing but rubbish. She nearly screamed when she saw the grinning face with that damned bowtie with his nose right up against hers. "Did you like it?" he asked.

"What?" Karina said with a cough. She glanced around and realised that she seemed to be huddled under the—what had he called it?—console of the TARDIS. Karina slowly picked herself up and was shocked to see that there was no damage whatsoever anywhere around her. But… they had bumped around so much, and that noise… she had thought that we had surely crashed, so she did what any logical person would do. She sought cover. "What just happened?" she asked.

"We landed," he told Karina, apparently confused.

"_That_ was landing? Is it like that every time?" she asked incredulously.

"Yep!" he replied.

"Travelling with you isn't just going to be some vacation, is it?" she asked, catching on to what her life would (hopefully!) soon be with the Doctor.

"Nope!" he said cheerily, but then he sobered up. "Karina, if you think it's too much, if you _ever_ want to go home just let me know and I'll have you there before you even know it."

She hugged him. "I never want to leave!" she exclaimed. "So, where are we?"

He smiled at her. He had forgotten how amazing it felt, to be travelling again. Since Clara had gone… No. he wasn't thinking about that. Not today. "Earth," the Doctor replied.

"What?" Karina replied, slightly irritated. She wanted to meet the aliens!

"We're on Earth… in the year one hundred and ninety-eight thousand, seven hundred and twenty-six. The Fourth Great and Bountiful Human Empire has just started to rise to power in the universe. No Satellite Five yet, though. Suppose that's a good thing. And the earth itself is home to billions upon billions of what you know as aliens."

Karina gasped.

"You wanted to see aliens, but it's your first trip! I didn't want to take you _too_ far from home!" the doctor explained.

"You took me almost two hundred thousand years in the future!" Karina exclaimed.

"Oh, please. That's nothing!" the Doctor scoffed. Karina simply gaped at him. _Nothing_? "So! Let's see where we've landed!" the Doctor led her to the door and pushed it open.

Once Karina got a glimpse of the outside, she gasped. The city they were in literally _sparkled_. At least half of the buildings were _glittery_. Oh, the buildings… they were skyscrapers a thousand times taller than anything Karina had ever seen before. They had to be at least a mile high, no exaggerations. It was clean too. Completely clean. Karina supposed we finally figured out a way to fix the environment, if there ever was anything wrong with it at all. Maybe nature just had to figure out a solution naturally.

She shook her head. She was standing in a gorgeous, gorgeous city thousands of years in the future and she was worrying about the _environment_? "Doctor?" she called behind her, to where he was last standing.

"Yeah?" he replied coolly. She turned around to find that he was leaning in the doorway of the TARDIS.

"This is amazing! What do we _do_?" she burst in excitement.

"This is London. And we can do whatever you want," he replied, smiling just a tiny bit.

"_Anything_?" she asked suspiciously. He nodded in confirmation. "Can we go shopping?" she squealed. Everything set aside, Karina _was_ a teenage girl. And clothes from the _future_? How could anyone pass that up?

"Fine," the Doctor grumbled, obviously not happy with her choice. "The biggest shopping centre in the solar system just so happens to be in this very megacity. _Of course_ this is where I landed," he mumbled the last bit.

"Really?" Karina was jumping with excitement now. "What are we waiting for?" She grabbed the Doctor's arm, dragging him along.

* * *

When they reached their destination, all Karina could do was stare, her neck craned as far as she could. The centre was at least as wide as hers back home, but it seemed to go up _forever_. The Doctor sighed. He knew that they wouldn't be leaving anytime in the near future.

It wasn't that the Doctor didn't _enjoy _shopping… at least certain kinds of shopping. Clothes shopping especially was boring for him. He wore the same exact thing each day, thanks to his wonderful TARDIS. Shopping for clothing just seemed so… useless. Shopping for, let's say, certain neck accessories or llamas… well that was more like it.

Karina dragged the Doctor through the gigantic revolving doors and then stopped short. "Doctor," she hissed. "I don't have any money!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes at her. "You think your pounds from millennia ago are still circulating? They belong in museums now." He flashed a shiny silver card at her. "Unlimited Credits," he explained.

"Unlimited?" Karina asked, shocked. The Doctor winked. "How?" she asked. Was he some type of theif?

"Well, shall we do it the boring way or the fun way?" the Doctor asked her.

"I wanna see both."

"Both it is then! The fun way first!" He galloped off to a machine that was similar looking to a cash machine and had a sign reading 'CREDITS.' The Doctor pulled out a strange metal tool with a green light on the end and began zapping away at the machine, first checking to make sure no one was watching him. Another strange noise came from the tool.

"What's that?" Karina asked curiously.

"This," the Doctor said, taking another cash card out of the machine that read 'unlimited,' "Is my sonic screwdriver."

Karina couldn't hold in the laugh that burst out. "Your _sonic screwdriver_? Are you serious? Actually, properly serious? What does it _do_?"

"What _doesn't _it do?" the Doctor said seriously.

"Oh my gosh, you're mad," Karina exclaimed.

"This machine right here has stopped planets from tearing themselves apart!" he tapped the screwdriver. "So, you've seen the fun way. I suppose now I can show you the boring way." He led the way to the help centre. "Hello! I'm the Doctor! This is my… friend," he said, not sure what the right word was. He couldn't use fiancée, as he normally would've; she was too young. But she was too old to be his daughter. He went for the vague approach.

"My name is Cayla. How can I help you?" the woman sitting there asked boredly. She has bright purple hair and skin that was tinted slightly blue, but she was most definitely human, or of a species that looked human.

"Well you see, as I was saying, I'm the Doctor, I'm a Time Lord, and this is my friend-"

"What?" Cayla asked, sitting up straight. She wasn't bored at all anymore. "Did you just say you were a Time Lord?"

"Yes, pay attention," the Doctor continued. "This is Karina, she's human. At least I think she is. You're human, right Karina?"

"Oh my goodness, sir, I am so, so sorry! We didn't realise there was a Time Lord visiting today! The Eclipse Shopping Centre welcomes you and apologises for our inhospitality! Would you like the area to be cleared?"

"Oh, of course not! That's just silly!" the Doctor said, straightening his bowtie.

"Very well, sir. Please take this, courtesy of the Eclipse," she began, handing him another shiny card. "It has unlimited Credits. Please feel free to ask anyone if you are in need of _any_ assistance, sir!"

The Doctor nodded and thanked her, and then led Karina away. "Did she seem… off to you?" the Doctor asked as they were walking towards the lift.

"No, why?" Karina replied.

"It must be nothing," the Doctor brushed it off. He pulled out a map he had gotten at the desk. "What would you like to look for? It's organised by product type. Clothing, right? What type?"

"Oh gosh, well, I'm in need of some rompers!" Karina decided.

"Teen's rompers it is then! Floors 654 through 662."

The lift took _forever_ to get down to the ground floor where Karina and the Doctor waited. You'd have thought that they'd be faster in the future. When Karina brought this up, the Doctor explained that there was a teleport available but he preferred not to travel by teleport. Karina didn't bother even asking.

When the lift finally did arrive, there was no button panel but instead a computer-type thing where you put in the floor number you wanted to go to. She typed in '654' and waited for the lift to start up… when the doors 'binged' open on floor 654. So the lift was very fast. And stealthy. How many floors were _in_ this building, if it had taken the lift so long to get to the bottom at that speed?

Finally taking in where she was, Karina gasped. Rompers were _everywhere_. There seemed to be thousands of styles, sizes, and colours. There probably were, what with how many floors and how big they were.

Karina ran into the forest of clothing, in heaven. There weren't too many other customers who had chosen floor 654, teen rompers, that day, which Karina was slightly thankful for, slightly disappointed. She wanted to meet some aliens! They had passed by some on the street and on the lobby floor, but there weren't any in teen rompers and she hadn't spoken to any of the other ones. She had barely even gotten a good look at them.

Around three hours and a very large number of rompers later, Karina was ready to find another section. Jewelry, she was thinking. She walked towards where the Doctor waited for her when a scream pierced through the air.


End file.
